The She-Dragon's Prince
by Molten-Ashes
Summary: To break the Curse you have to do Three things: 1) Kidnap a Princess. 2) Defend your Princess from the heroic Knights. 3) Help her find her Happily Ever After. Piece of cake right? So... Why has she kidnapped a Prince?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail

Feedback is always appreciated!

(So this odd little story popped into my head one day while skimming through some NaLu images and thus here it is! Looked over by the lovely Ice Fata but there may be a few things that have fallen through the cracks, regardless, I hope everybody enjoys it!)

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Natsu really hated the tower.

Lucy couldn't understand it, puzzling worriedly over the cylindrical building with its pointed roof and quaint little window with a sprawling balcony. "But that's how it's supposed to look!" She assured him anxiously, still tilting her head this way and that at the sight of the run down, abandoned castle she had taken him to. "It says so right here!" The female continued, putting down a thick volume of fairy tales before him with magnificent illustrations penned with painstaking detail over each sheet of paper. "So I must be doing it right!"

"Luce, I'm also supposed to be a Princess, not a Prince." The pink haired boy sighed miserably, tilting his head up to take in his fidgeting dragon companion who flicked her wing dismissively.

"I'm not the one who was wearing a dress and tied to a stake at the edge of the city." The she-dragon sneered in annoyance, her lips peeling back to show off perfectly carnivorous teeth, a flicker of star fire licking along the pearly whites. Lucy was still clearly miffed that she hadn't actually captured a real princess it seemed.

Natsu had the grace to look a little embarrassed, looking way from his dragon kidnapper, to scuff at the ground with his sandal, "Hey it was a Coming of Age party or some nonsense okay? It's just that that Polar Popsicle, Gray, got the drop on me while I was... A little bit drunk. Anyway! Who goes around mistaking a prank for a sacrifice?!"

"Hey! I told you that I was new at this!" She shrieked, though it came out as more of a roar, her wing appendages spreading up and out in a full display of dazzling feminine anger while her long spiked tail lashed like a tortured snake. She lifted a taloned paw to swipe at him, but refrained from accidentally gutting and sending her irritating captive flying with a great effort. "I'm trying to do this by the book to break this stupid curse!"

Natsu sighed, lowering himself petulantly to the ground as the she-dragon stalked off to explore the abandoned castle they had stumbled upon, her golden visage glimmering as she slipped under the entrance gate that had a bizarre stylised logo of a fairy with a tail carved out of cherry wood. He supposed his life could be worse, he snickered to himself, raking around in his backpack for some venison jerky, he could be Gray trying to explain to his father how exactly a fumbling golden dragoness had dropped from the sky and so easily kidnapped a fully trained Dragon Slayer.

Lucy was relatively harmless, he had discovered with relief, when she had eagerly landed a few mountains over to inspect her prize, throwing a tantrum at fate over the gender confusion of her captive, before insultingly accusing him of being a cross-dressing pervert.

It was more out of necessity that he followed the cursed woman turned dragoness around afterwards, watching her look so torn and squeamish over killing an old stag with her draconian might. If anything, his ability to hunt was doing her a favour if nothing else. Besides, he was having the most fun he had ever had in his life, even if they did bicker like an old married couple.

She returned an hour later with an evil glint in her admittedly serenely beautiful big brown eyes, causing him to hunch his shoulders and reach up to loosen the white dragon scale scarf at his neck nervously when she leaned over him imperiously, lizard tongue flicking out with a teasing hiss. "Natsu." She cooed sweetly, batting half opened wings, "Guess where the only usable bedroom is."

"In the dungeons?" He asked with a grin so wide it was obviously fake.

"It's your favourite place!" Lucy continued, ignoring his yelp when she grabbed him by the scruff of his jacket and lifted him, almost prancing like a show horse under the welcoming gates and rearing up to toss him ungracefully onto the Princess Tower's balcony, the dragoness half hugging the tower to remain on her rear legs, watching with gleeful enthusiasm as the Prince dusted himself off and peered about his new sleeping quarters with distaste.

The tower was clearly meant for a girl, much to his frustration as he took in the billowing bright pink silk curtains that were only slightly torn, even after having been abandoned for heavens knew how long. Inside was even worse, almost as if someone had barfed up all the shades of pink imaginable before tipping it over the circular room. "I hate you." He hissed, turning to glare at the snickering dragoness, though his bad mood lightened a little at the fun Lucy finally seemed to be having, even if it was at his expense somewhat. As he watched his new friend giggle, Natsu had a nagging feeling that he would love her smile in her true human form.

"It matches your hair!" Lucy cackled, lifting a brown talon to her reptilian eye and mimicked wiping away a tear. "Oh, my Mavis, this is the best!"

"First thing tomorrow you are flying me to the nearest town to buy better sheets." He growled, remembering he was still supposed to be mad at her.

"Do I look like a donkey to you?!" Lucy immediately snapped back indignantly, her snooty upbringing shining through.

The salmon haired man frowned, slyly smiling at the conflicted anxiousness that began to cloud his kidnapper's eyes as he let the moment drag. "I also need some money."

"Well aren't you lucky that I found the remainder of a horde a vault!" Lucy brightened after a moments more contemplation, "I'll go get some for you!"

Her chocolate coloured talons skittered over the marble of the tower as she settled back onto all fours, forcing Natsu to peer over the balcony railing down at her large frame moving towards a big barn like structure at the back of the complex, the thuds of her sizeable weight disappearing as she lowered herself to skitter into the dark.

The cursed girl returned after sunset, her golden head popping up like a new sun over the white marble, startling him into dropping his meagre supplies they had raided from a bandit nest after Natsu had demanded to get out of the nauseating yellow dress he had been kidnapped in. "Damn it!" He cursed, dropping an old battered cooking pot that bounced and rolled around on the balcony, stopping by Lucy's head as she opened her maw and let a rain of gold metal cascade from her tongue to flood a section of the balcony with loose coins. The old currency jumped and spun upon the ivory slabs, rolling between the gaps in the carved railing to twinkle like falling stars to the courtyard below with sounds like a choir of bells.

"Ta-da!" Lucy squealed happily, bobbing her horned head in a self satisfied manner, ignoring her companions disgust at the saliva coating the gold pieces. "And this is only a mouthful of the stuff down there!"

"You're such a weirdo, Luce." He complained, wincing as he sifted through the generous pile, pulling away his fingers coated in dragon drool. "Couldn't you have just carried this in a bucket or something?"

"Excuse me?!" She rumbled darkly, dark eyes narrowing in offence, using the tip of her muzzle to push the iron cooking pot back over to the grossed out Prince as he began to put the gold into the utensil. "This tower is really high you know! This is as far as I can reach!"

"Still..." Natsu grumbled, wincing at a particularly slimy doubloon as he tossed it into the pot. "Anyway... Thanks, Lucy."

He couldn't help but smile in return as the Princess turned Dragoness bared her fangs in a dragon's grin.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail

Feedback is always appreciated!

(Hi everyone! So glad you've come back for chapter two! Looked over by Ice Fata, but we might not have caught everything while looking it over. Anyways, Enjoy!)

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Natsu found out that Lucy likes to do things by the book pretty early on into their bizarrely budding friendship.

The woman didn't fill the role of a dragon very well, often forgetting her size and strength as she gestured during her speech or accidentally setting things alight in her temper, causing many new holes to appear in the roofs and walls of the abandoned Keep they had moved into for the foreseeable future, much to her horrified dismay when an old blacksmith forge collapsed in on itself after she had stretched that morning.

Natsu had been awoken by the ruckus, flailing like a landed fish onto the burningly frigid floor as Lucy's draconic scream of frustration almost burst his eardrums and shook the marble tower, dislodging dust from the rafters in a fluffy grey shower.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes blearily, the pink haired Prince stumbling out onto the balcony, wincing at the painful cold shock as his bare feet padded over the white slabs that had been tempered by the cloudless night's chill.

"Luce!?" He called groggily, leaning over the railing, spotting his she-dragon companion lurking coiled around the base of the tower, smoke puffing from her nostrils as she angrily chomped on the remainder of their venison supplies. Yep, she was sulking.

The golden dragon ignored him, though her head slightly twitched at the sound of her name and her warm brown gaze swivelled up towards him before she resolutely returned to her meal while a talon tip flicked over the next page in her Fairy Tale book.

Natsu yawned again, returning to his circular room with no visible door on any surface, shrugging on his jacket before crouching to fasten his sandals to his now throughly chilled feet. He jumped slightly when he turned to find Lucy peering over the balcony, her pointed horns cradling the rising sun between the sharp tines as it rose behind her, dazzling him when the light caused her scales to flash like miniature suns.

"Yo, Luce." He greeted casually, as his Kidnapper rumbled fussily when he took his time to transfer some of the treasure into a small coin purse and attach it to his belt.

"Natsu." She huffed, inclining her angled head, offering him one of her curved horns to latch onto, her Princely passenger whooping with delight as she merely dropped to all fours, leaving small talon grooves in the side of the tower from where she has pushed off.

The royal grinned, his wild hair even more tousled after the large adrenaline spiking drop was over. He let go of the head spike, sliding down her curving neck to stop at the blank junction of her shoulders while the soft barbed spines that ran down her back flexed stiff like a Porcupine's array of needles, giving him a solid hand hold.

Lucy carted him off into the forest on her back with a small measure of smarted pride, the forest birds and animals fleeing her large presence as they wound deeper into the forest trails.

Suddenly, she stiffened, pausing mid stride, tilting her head back towards her passenger as she felt his heels kick against her shoulder scales. Natsu merely grinned at her, tapping her again with his heels and clicking his tongue. Her eyes narrowed to a thin sliver, her rounded pupil slitting like a true dragon's as she glowered when he dared to kick her again like one would to gee up a horse.

Natsu paused at the honestly scary stare, yelping in alarm when the she-dragon wrapped her surprisingly flexible tail around his midsection and tossed him face first into a puddle of dirty rain water at the side of the forest path.

"Never do that again." She hissed, guttural and primal, with blue and gold fire simmering in her throat, a flock of birds taking wing as they reacted to the smoke.

He beamed unapologetically in the face of her temper, though his face curled up in minor annoyance when he saw the mud now coating his baggy white trousers.

"Did you really have to throw me?" Natsu asked with an air of superiority, "You really should rise above such things Lucy."

The dragoness leaned in with the speed of a snake strike, her fangs bared, causing him to flinch back with a startled gasp, "You can walk from here." She snarled, rearing up above the tree line to point in the direction of the nearest town with a talon. "Good Luck getting home before dark."

With that the upset she-dragon turned and took off with a mighty snap of her silver skinned wings, leaving her captive to shout heart-felt apologies in her wake.

The Prince sighed miserably, cursing himself for upsetting his new friend. He turned and plodded along the forest road, the sounds of the forest that had tapered off as Lucy had passed by beginning to return as the braver birds let out shrill cries, fighting over the perches high above him. To his surprise, the town was closer than he had thought, reaching the high border walls within an hour of Lucy leaving him.

A large message board plastered with fliers adorned the side of an entrance gate, the older sheafs of paper curling and yellowed at the edges, weathered by the wind and rain.

Curious, the ruggedly clothed Prince sidled closer, scanning over the bounties and requests, blanching when his own likeness stared back at him the further he looked along the wall. He panicked quietly, grabbing the paper and ripping it from its pin, pausing only to stuff it into his pocket as he walked past the guards, his tanned hand cupping the side of his face to cover his features.

Slyly, Natsu bought a travelling cloak first from a small sewing shop just inside the walls, throwing the hood up over his salmon shaded hair the first chance he got, luring a suspicious guard off his trail by telling her he could sense it was due to rain, bolting when she looked up into the cloudless sky in confusion for confirmation.

He sighed in relief, pressed against an alley wall as she shrugged and wandered off, belatedly wondering why the hell he was bothering to conceal his identity.

Natsu scowled to himself, though he fidgeted slightly at the thought of ending his whacky adventure right here and now. All he had to do was buy a horse, some supplies and he could be back in the palace by next week.

But as the Prince tossed back his hood and made to step out into the light, a fond thought struck him.

Lucy, the girl who was cursed to be a dragon, laughing with him over the campfire of their second night together. He bright enthusiasm and anxious approval seeking only yesterday when she had proudly shown him their new residence and her longing expression as she watched the sunset with him, balancing on her back legs to chat as stars began to dot the heavens. His stomach dropped at the thought of leaving her, the golden dragoness who longed to be human again. He really would have to apologise to her.

The sound of hooves clattering over the cobbles startled him out of his reverie, instinctively throwing his hood back over his head and tucking closer to the shadows as a gang of Knights moseyed into the town, only stopping when they came across the sleepy suburb's Inn. The lead Knight reined in his dappled steed, a silver armoured hand reaching for the helmet as Natsu's jaw dropped in horror when he realised just who had revealed himself to catch the morning suns rays.

The Ice Demon Hunter and his best friend since they were boys, Gray Fullbuster.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail

Feedback is always appreciated! (And a very big thank you to those who have reviewed/alerted or favourited already, you guys are awesome.)

(looked over by the lovely Ice Fata. I hope you all enjoy!)

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 **===Lucy===**

Number one on a dragon's list of priorities was its horde. Or princess. Or whatever it fancied really. The stories weren't really clear how one managed to actually employ a dragon to do ones bidding but it was still a very important rule. Dragons protected their stuff, end of story.

DisclaimerSo it took Lucy all of two seconds after leaving Natsu shouting after her scaly behind on a deserted forest road to realise that letting her captive go in a fit of rage probably wasn't the best move she could have made.

"It's his own fault," she snarled aloud to herself as her anger boiled into a raging flume of blue fire that scorched the clouds she skimmed through into thin wisps of steam. Her wings snapping in the air like pistons hurtling the female ever faster, trailing embers in her wake. "Stupid Natsu."

Her anger takes time to fade, several high speed laps around her new abandoned Keep doing nothing but wearing her patience with the whole fiasco thin. The last dregs of frustration leave her depressingly drained and empathetically empty. A flying pig with a singing goat riding it could pass and she would merely eye it with pessimism and a roll of her eyes.

Golden scales flash in the sun as she begins to slowly wheel in the sky with indecision, circling her Keep with a frustrated air, the pros and cons of rushing back to snag Natsu by the scruff of his jacket and drag him back to his tower like a scolded child rattling around her head. She really should just make a sign that said 'Time Out Tower' and be done with it, she thought savagely with an evil internal smirk. "See if any Knight would come get him then." She preened to herself with a happy puff of smoke.

Her moonlight pale wings began to ache with her exertion, making the once-woman grumble in annoyance as her less than graceful landing in the spacious courtyard caused cracks in the flagstones and brought down half the roof of the old stables. Simmering with a bratty tantrum, Lucy thrashed her tail and spat sparks over the poor abused flagstones with a frustrated growl, despairing over some golden scales that had come off in her mild crash, leaving winking aurum eyes as they caught the sun.

The whole place felt empty, more foreboding by herself without Natsu to amble about, playing pranks on her, breaking things and complain about the horror of everything remotely resembling his hair colour. Say what you will, the Princess that was here last must have loved pink.

Lucy sank to her soft belly scales, resolving to clean up her shed scales later, crooning at the warmth of the slabs beneath her, before reaching into a nearby alcove and drawing out her Fairy Tale book.

'I'll give him till sunset', she decided with a firm nod of her head as she flipped the page of her book delicately with the fine tip of a brown talon, then she will go drag him back.

 **==Meanwhile==**

 **===Natsu===**

Natsu groaned in frustration as he tried to back track through the town.

At every turn their seemed to be one of his father's Knights, with Grey lurking between the inn and the entrance gates that lead back to Lucy's Keep.

He had somehow managed to shop while he was scrambling for the nearest available exit. The first stop had been at the local butcher, ducking under the shop awning and nearly gagging at the stale smell of blood soaked into the wood of the slanted compartments packed with marbled meat and salt. The man was rather large, a portly gentleman, if he was to select a phrase from the noble drivel his father had shoved down his throat during etiquette lessons. The disguised prince sized up the meat by eye as the big man snorted irritably like a horse and proceeded to go back to sharpening his carving knives upon a honing stone, sending a shower of sparks over his leather apron splattered with dark stains of animal blood.

The meat was newly out, he summarised gleefully after a moment, waving a small purse of the ancient doubloons at the grumpy butcher that adhered to his very large order.

"What are you going to be doing with all this meat, boy?" The man snickered nastily as Natsu packed it tightly into his travelling pack. "Feeding a dragon?"

"Well... Something like that... But she's really nice if you can catch her in a good mood." He nervously chuckled, scratching the back of his neck with an embarrassed shuffle as the overweight man gave him an appraising, knowing look.

"Be careful what you say boy, or word might get back to your wife."

The butcher smirked at his spluttering, complete with a hot flush dusting his tan skin, a wheezy cackle following the stomping Prince back into the sun.

Natsu grumbled to himself moodily as he followed the street back towards the entrance, a low swinging sign catching his attention as he turned the corner onto the Main Street towards the forest.

It was a wooden sign, lacquered and bright in the shape of an open book, with words literally jumping off the page.

A flash of armoured silver ahead had him bolting for the door, a bell jangling loudly at his entrance, causing the petite woman browsing on the top shelf to squeak in surprise and nearly over balance on the rickety wheeled ladder.

"Oh, hello!" She waved down at his cloaked form, grabbing the shelf for balance as she slotted a heavy tome back into its place. "Welcome to the Little Bookshop!"

"Little...right." Natsu smirked under his hood, staring around at the giant space, filled to almost overflowing to with books and scrolls of every subject imaginable.

The blue haired girl beamed joyfully, bouncing down the rungs of the ladder with a graceful ease to stand before him with a happy energy. "Knowledge is power don't you know."

"Oh really?" He snorted derisively, earning himself an almost poisonous glower, "uh... I mean, do you have any good adventure novels?"

So that was how little book shop owner, Levy McGarden, got Prince Natsu Dragneel to sit still for an hour and grudgingly, painstakingly go through five shelves of individual books to find the perfect one.

"Lucy had better worship me for this." He snarled to himself sourly, as the girl wrapped up his purchase, along with a big book of fictional tales, as an apology for Lucy, given to him by the kind little knowledge hoarder, with heartfelt promises of more to come after he had spilled a rather good sob story about his 'poor' golden 'friend' that couldn't even get out of her bed in the morning due to her tragic 'illness' and how ever so much did she love to read.

Once he had tied the books to his bag, he gave a half hearted wave back to the cheerful bookworm and left the stuffy shop, breathing in the town air and strode out into the thick of it again, his inner monologue a conflicting argument of why exactly he is trying so hard.

Surely Gray, after a few punches and being half strangled to death on principle, would allow him to ride to the Keep and see Lucy before he got dragged back to his Father. Heck, if he begged forgiveness, asked nicely and bribed her with the new books, the golden she-dragon might set his stripper friend alight for him or make some effort to retrieve him because it said she had to in her ridiculous 'Fairy Tale Rulebook' she was always preaching to him about.

While he wandered with that lovely thought of Gray being toasted by Lucy, he wasn't aware that he was being tailed until a heavy armoured hand slapped down on his shoulder.

He reacted without really thinking, grabbing his perceived attacker's wrist and swept around to clock them square in the face with his elbow, all while yelling an attention grabbing, "Stranger Danger!"

His elbow throbbed harshly, wincing at the sting when he finally realised who he had dropped to the floor in a clatter of armour.

Gray Fullbuster scowled up at him, massaging his jaw from where he was sitting on the cobbled street, his helmet spinning like a top over the street with a metallic ring.

"What the hell did you do that for?!" The dark haired man growled up at the Prince's shadowed face, clutching at his cheek while he rolled back up onto his feet.

"Who the hell goes around grabbing random people you...?!" Natsu flared hotly, mentally beating down his temper with a stick as various trademark insults rose to the tip of his tongue, halted only by the dull throb of jamming his fanged teeth into his bottom lip.

"All I wanted to say, guy, is that you shouldn't walk around town like that." Gray said with an annoyed twitch of his eyebrow, his bright eyes flashing like steel even as he half stripped out of his chest armour. "The local authorities have already asked us to remove you in case you stir up trouble."

"I'm just leaving anyway!" The disguised prince snapped, "Just point me towards the nearest exit and I will go you Pervy Popsicle..."

"Pervy... Popsicle?" Gray repeated, eyes narrowed as the air temperature dropped, a fine frozen mist swirling where the Knight had reached for his magical ice sword tied at his hip.

As the pink haired man watched wearily where the blast of ice magic would come from, he never managed to catch the other hand flashing out to yank down his hood.

"Natsu?!" Gray scowled with fury, his molars almost audibly grinding as his rosy coloured hair was revealed to the cloudless sky, "What the hell man?!"

The Prince blanched, his tan skin drained pale, before he shot out his hand and punched his childhood friend in the face. With a quick snicker, he turned on his heel and ran like a man possessed, squirrelling down back alleys, vaulting low walls and weaving the crowd before he darted into the town stables, a mere two foot solid stone wall away from freedom.

A horn sounded in the distance, loud and probably magically amplified given the buzzing ring that it left in his sensitive ears.

Natsu winced as he hid behind a haystack, "Oh man, Lucy is going to be so annoyed..."

 **===Lucy===**

She was getting incredibly bored.

Her fairy tale book only lasted so long with her reading prowess and she had practically memorised the contents of the book cover to cover on top of that anyway. So here she was, the great and terrible She-Dragon Lucy, playing tiddlywinks with plates of pure gold in the courtyard. The once heiress let out a groan of boredom as a plate skittered off into a gap between the old rusted water trough she had been aiming for, flopping to the floor with an earth shaking thud as if she had been skewered by an imaginary Knight's lance.

She flicked out her lizard like tongue, scrunching up her nose as it flicked against one of the farther reaching plates from her game, bringing an oddly nice metallic taste back into her mouth.

"My book did say Dragons liked to eat gold." Lucy muttered with a note of heavy interest, sliding along the floor with a lazy intent, scales scraping musically along the ground as she lolled her forked tongue to lick up the old expensive dinner ware. However, as she got up and reared back onto her hind legs, preparing herself to swallow the a nervous mental countdown, a bright blue cat with white wings dropped from the sky right onto the tip of her muzzle, sinking its needle like claws into the soft scales of her nostrils...


End file.
